Activision’s independent gamble: what do devs have to lose?

Activision Blizzard is getting into the independent gaming scene with a $500,000 contest meant to find the next undiscovered hit. The winner of the first round of the competition gets a check for $175,000, and Activision will have the first crack at publishing the game.

Activision's reputation of being hostile towards developers and churning out yearly sequels may not seem to fit with the spirit of independent gaming, however, and some onlookers are already crying foul after reading the competition's rules. Is the event a way for a lucky developer to win some cash and a publishing deal, or is the gaming industry's bogeyman out for blood? The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

The ownership of the IP will be part of negotiations

A rumor had it that merely by entering the contest, Activision would gain ownership of the developer's intellectual property, but Activision's Dan Amrich claims that is not the case. What does happen? Activision gets rights of first refusal on publishing the winner's title, meaning it has a chance to publish the game before anyone else gets a crack at it. If Activision decides to publish, the ownership of the IP will be one of the things negotiated.

"If the winner creates a game that Activision would want to publish, then they would discuss that publishing deal after winning, and that publishing deal would involve... a discussion of IP ownership," Amrich explained on his blog. "According to the lawyers who drew up the rules—because I went back to them and asked—relinquishing IP ownership is not a provision to enter this contest, and the publishing deal would be a separate negotiation, starting from scratch."

Activision will be using an independent judging system; the company claims it won't even see most of the submissions. Fears about the contest being a way for CEO Bobby Kotick to raid independent talent seem to be mostly unfounded.

Is it secret? Is it safe?

Still, Jeffry Rosen has some problems with how the contest is being run. Rosen is the founder of Wolfire Games, the independent developer that made such a splash with the Humble Bundle a short time ago. One of his major issues: for a game to be eligible, it can't have been shown in the past.

Here is the section of the rules he's referring to:

The Submission cannot have been submitted previously in a promotion of any kind or exhibited or displayed publicly through any means.

"Making it so that only indie games that are 100 percent secret are eligible does not really feel indie. We've given a couple of talks at GDC about 'open development' where we advocate that indie developers are upfront with their games and keep the community posted from the beginning," Rosen told Ars. "Activision is basically promoting the opposite, which I take offense to."

For independent games, it's important to build buzz and awareness before your game is done. If you have a website dedicate to your game, if you've submitted it to another festival, if you have shown off screenshots or early video, you're out of the running. Any game you've ever read about, seen, or know about, in effect, has been disqualified.

Rosen is also leery of how the right to first refusal is buried in the rules. "Instead of burying the fact that they can ask you for the right of first refusal to any publishing deal or 'development' of your game, they should make that the whole point of the contest," he says.

Rosen also points out that you don't need a finished game to enter; even design documents will be considered, although you have to give detailed accounts of your business plan and the size of your team.

"By making the contest amorphous, where people can submit completely finished games, prototypes, or even just detailed business plans, it is pretty hard to take it seriously, compared to other indie competitions like the Independent Games Festival," he added.

For developers, this is a tricky call

Activision is sure to get deluged with entries from developers hoping to break into the business, but it's important that everyone who enters reads the entirety of the official rules and understands exactly what would happen if they win. It's also going to be a challenge for dedicated developers to give up talking about or showing off their game in order to enter. Can you imagine a film festival where pre-existing trailers disqualified you?

Still, the contest is another opportunity for independent developers to get their games into the wild, and the money at stake doesn't hurt, either. No doubt plenty of developers will take Activision up on its design challenge.

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